WATCH: Obama shames the press for normalizing Trump's 'outrageous and unacceptable' behavior

How have we gotten to the point where it's normal for a presidential candidate heap praise on Vladimir Putin, not understand that the military has a court system, and talk openly about purging a large chunk of senior officers from the military?

President Obama on Thursday said that a lot of it has to do with how our media has covered Trump as though he's a regular presidential candidate, rather than a dangerous outlier who has broken democratic norms during every step of his campaign.

"There is this process that seems to take place over this electoral season where somehow behavior that in normal times we would consider completely outrageous and unacceptable becomes normalized," Obama said during a news conference while on his trip to Asia. "And people start thinking we should be grading on a curve."

Obama also challenged the media to treat Trump as though he were a real presidential candidate and not just some joke candidate who deserved less scrutiny.

"I think it's important for the public, and the press, to just listen to what he says and to follow up, and ask questions about what appear to be contradictory, or uninformed, or outright wacky ideas," he said.

Moderator Matt Lauer has come under heavy fire for his performance on Wednesday night at the Commander in Chief Forum, in which he let Trump get away with falsely claiming that he had always been against the invasion in Iraq, among other things.

Check out Obama's full remarks below.